Chapitre 51: 51. Chapter 51
thanks to IProMIseNOw for the Croatian
Oh. Kate was right.
This is probably too much for the kids.
Every time something else pops out from the rows of corn stalks, or around a stack of hay bales, Dashiell takes off like a bat out of hell. True to his name. And it's Kate who has to run after him, and she doesn't look thrilled with that.
Of course, after the two women in line behind them made those comments about Kate's parenting ("all the gory details"), he's pretty sure tonight was shot as far as she's concerned. Still, he's noticed that the scarier costumed employees are taking it easy with Dash and Ella, like they're passing the word up front to watch out for the little kids.
Still. For awhile now, this girl (she's probably sixteen, but she looks ten) in a tattered, dirty white dress with black around her eyes and red smears around her mouth and down her neck, fake blood in her dress - she's been following him and Ellery for the last. . .oh, at least five minutes.
It's seriously unnerving. Ellery is in his arms, and has been since the first creature lunged out at Dash and the boy shrieked like a little girl and ran off. Kate disappeared down the maze after him, and Ella practically climbed his body to get into his arms.
Seriously, this ghost girl is taking the job too far. "Good job, kid. You're freaking me out. Now go pester someone else," he says, arching an eyebrow at the little wraith behind him.
She doesn't speak, doesn't move away. Ellery grips his neck. If it were just him. Or if it were just him and Kate. . .he'd probably be running just like his son. But since it's Ella in his arms, Ella needing her father to pretend like that chick is not seriously wigging him out, then he's got to tough it out, man up, be her hero.
"All right. Follow us then. It's cool," he says, shrugging his shoulders for Ella's benefit. Since his back is turned to the girl in the white dress, he can't see her (which is bad) and Ella can (which is also bad). But he's not sure how to fix that.
It's well and truly dark in the maze now, but he rounds a corner and nearly trips over Dash. "Hey. Where's Mom?"
"Back there," Dash says, then bounces up and down on his toes, actually jumping, as if he is trying to see-
Oh. Ug, Kate will so not like this.
They're about to hang someone.
Well, fake hang. But-
"What they doing, Daddy?" Ellery says in a soft voice.
Castle glances back to his daughter and somehow - yeah, she's right, Kate is right - this is so much worse. He doesn't want Ellery to see this. His baby girl? No. Not good.
"Dash, where's Mommy?"
"Back there. I don't know."
"Daddy, what is that?"
"Dash-" He growls and spins in a slow circle, searching for Kate. He digs his phone out of his pocket-
"Daddy, hold me up so I can see. I wanna see him get hung."
"Hanged," he automatically corrects, narrowing his eyes through the darkness as he fiddles with this phone. Ellery keeps twisting her head to look, seemingly as entranced as Dashiell is, and now there's a crowd of maze-goers who are at the foot of a platform surrounded by hay bales. Everyone's watching, chatting in the warm night; Castle tries to text Kate but he can't get a good grip on his phone. The spotlight flares brightly to illuminate the cluster of actors; a man dressed in medieval peasant garb is led to the noose, a bag over his head.
He doesn't hear the actors' lines because Dashiell is loudly telling him I can't see, tugging on his shirt, so Castle gives in and picks him up as well, a kid in each arm, his phone useless in his fist.
Damn it.
"Ellery. Put your head down, close your eyes."
"I wanna watch."
Okay, seriously. What is he supposed to say to that? No? Wouldn't that make it all the more strange and mysterious and attractive? Public hanging. From ages and ages ago. And they're acting. It's like a bad play.
Dashiell is entirely calm - apparently the last thing that sent him running hasn't exactly damaged him (was it a guy dressed like a mummy?) - and his eyes are avidly following the movement on stage.
The executioner reads off a long list of crimes - stealing bread and cursing in public, blah blah blah - and then he flips a long, wooden handle and the bottom drops out-
"They hanged him! He's dangling!"
And well, it is a nice feat of magic. Some kind of misdirection to get the real actor out from the noose-
"Castle!"
He winces and turns, sees Kate coming towards him against the crowd now leaving the spectacle. In that moment, he gets that they've all been made medieval peasants, hungering for the sight of the macabre, eager blood lust, no better than spectators at the Roman coliseum, and he absolutely hates that and loves it at the same time.
Theatre. And this wasn't even good theatre.
"What the hell, Castle?"
"Language, Kate-"
"The furthest thing on my mind right now," she interrupts, tugging Dashiell out of his arms.
"They're fine."
"A hanging, Castle."
"It's fake."
"I know it's fake," she hisses, but her eyes keep flickering to Ella, and he sees her anger is more likely concern, and maybe some shame as well. Those two ladies' comments again. Or just. . .deeply rooted discomfort over how much she can't tell her kids about her job. They should probably talk about that - he's open to explaining, even though she hasn't been.
"Ellery wanted to watch. And Dash couldn't see. And I tried to find you-" He shrugs at her, swinging Ella around to his other side. His daughter looks normal, calm, unruffled. "Guys, any questions about what we saw?"
"Yeah!" Dashiell says with a fist pump. "Can we see it again?"
"No," Kate spits out, stalking away from the platform with their son in her arms.
"But Mo-om," Dashiell whines, struggling to get down. Kate lets him, and at that moment, a hunched figure breaks from the cornstalks and leers down at Dashiell.
"You like to see 'em swing?" he rasps, a rough and ragged voice that sounds like death itself.
Dashiell screams; Ellery startles; Dash is gone.
Kate glares at the undertaker-employee so viciously, so deadly, that for a moment, the guy steps back. And then Kate is off after Dash.
Castle goes by and pats the man on the shoulder. "Sorry, man. My kid loved it. My wife-? Eh, she thinks this is all. . .a little too much. Not your fault."
The undertaker blinks at him, then turns and fades back into the cornstalks.
Ellery hugs his neck and whispers. "Daddy, the girl is following us."
Castle glances behind them and there she is. The stringy-haired, white-dress little girl, head cocked at a funny angle, silent and shadowy and entirely too freaky.
Freaky.
He's not scared. He's just. . .on edge.
Kate finds Dashiell by following his half-hysterical giggles. He's leaning against a stack of hay bales taller than her head, clutching his stomach, and laughing so breathlessly that she's afraid he's going to pass out.
"You having fun?" she asks, not really all that pleased.
"This is so good. It's better than the haunted mansion Daddy always takes me to."
"The one that made you pee in your pants?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at him. Okay, admittedly low blow coming from mom, but she has seriously had it with Castle's idea of appropriate fun. She knew she should've taken Ellery and gone to get ice cream or something the moment the sunlight started to fade.
A hanging. That damned, infuriating man just let her two year old daughter watch a hanging.
What good is it for her to conceal every dark shadow of her job, every blot and stain, if her husband is just going to be so blase about death and parade horror in front of their kids like it's nothing? Like it's not real and couldn't ever happen to them-
Oh.
Shit. She hates it when she's wrong.
Or when he's more right.
Because that's the whole idea, isn't it? The whole idea is to make her kids feel safe, feel loved, feel like no, the horror couldn't ever really happen to them.
Even though it could.
A haunted maze and a fake hanging are better than the details of some grisly pop-and-drop, or a domestic violence call, or the way the body goes black and blue and stiffens up after so many hours left outside. Better to see an actor swing that to view an autopsy.
"I'm not gonna pee in my pants tonight." Dashiell says with a little glare. "I'm older now. Jeez, Mom."
Mom. Ug, she hates that it makes him sound so old. And her as well. But they grow up. He's growing up. Her son isn't that four week old that wouldn't sleep and rooted around in her arms seeking her warmth. She maybe still gets to whisper in his ear and hold him close to her chest, but he's nearly five years old. He'll be in real school next year; he has ideas of his own. He likes words and scary stuff and playing with dinosaurs who eat people. He's a boy.
"Okay, all right. I'm sorry. Let's. . .wait for Daddy and Ella, okay?"
"Did you see that dude? He just came out of nowhere," Dash wheezes, still scared silly and loving it. "He had blood around his eyes, too, Mom. He was like, all wretched and bent over-"
Mom again. "Mm, wretched? Good word."
"Yeah," he says, brightening up. "Daddy said it. Long time ago. I don't know for what."
"Daddy likes to use good words," she says, leaning against the stack of hay beside her son, a little amazed at having this conversation with him in the middle of a haunted maze.
"Daddy said. . .uh, scin - scin - scent-or-date?"
"Scintillate?" Kate glances down at the top of his head, the dark hair that still waves along the top of his head, remnants of the curls he had as a baby. She misses the baby stage; she never thought she would feel that way, but she does. Misses the little body close to hers and the smell, the paper-thin skin and the wrinkly face that plumps out into fat cheeks.
"Scintuh - That's it. Means really super interesting," Dash finishes. "I like that one too."
"Daddy taught you that one. Scintillate."
"Yup. And hanged."
Sigh. "Hanged. Yes."
"I thought it was hung."
"Oh. Well, that's one of those strange English rules, kiddo. When you talk about the past, hanging someone in the past, it's hanged. He was hanged. But if you're just hanging up something in the past, you hung it up."
"But the man was hung up."
"Except he's a man." Oh. And this might actually turn out okay, if she spins it right. "Don't you think there's a big difference in hanging up a stocking for Christmas and hanging a person?"
"Yes," Dash says quietly; she can tell he's thinking.
"So you show that you know there's a difference, that it's important, by saying the man was hanged, not hung like some old stocking."
"Oh."
"Words can tell you which things have more meaning - just by how you say it."
"Because it's not nice to hang a man."
"No, baby, it's not."
"Even if he's a bad guy?"
Oh well, right. Dashiell would automatically assume the guy being led to the noose was a bad guy, that he deserved it. Dash would have no idea of politics or social justice or medieval history or poverty.
Best to keep it simple. "I think that's the point of hanging a bad guy, Dash. It's not a nice thing to do, even if it's what you should do to bad guys." Huh, and now she and Castle need to talk about the death penalty and what they plan on telling their kids about that whole concept. She has a feeling Castle isn't really pro death penalty. Damn, this gets complicated fast, the older they get. "So, if you make sure that you know there's a difference, Dash, then it means something. It's respect for that person's life, even though they were a bad guy."
Dashiell turns his face up to her, his eyes dark and filled with questions he doesn't even know the words for. Questions about her, she knows, about her job and what it must be like for the police to catch those same bad guys. He might be growing up, but he's still too young to understand, to grasp the shades of grey inherent in catching killers.
"Like - like -" Dash struggles for a moment, then seems to finally land on the words he wants to use. "Like when we have karate class."
Kate shifts, glances back down the maze for Castle and Ella, tries to follow this twisting turn of Dashiell's conversation. "Karate class."
"We fight. And we kick and hit. But it's not nice to kick and hit. I get in trouble for kicking and hitting and fighting Ellery. Or a boy at school. But not in karate class. They tell us to in karate."
Kate sinks down to her heels so she can look at her son. Her marvelous, too-bright, always thinking son. She should have known that he would, in his own way, somehow understand.
"Yes, baby. Just like that."
"And I go to karate because there are bad people. Like you go to karate."
She nods once, waits for him to process that as well. Castle was the one to start calling her sparring and mixed martial arts training karate. For the kids' sake, to give them a point of reference. And to make Dash excited about his karate classes.
"But you catch all the bad people, right, Mommy? None of them get away."
His face is so vulnerable, so seeking - her little boy. "Yes, Dash. All of them." A promise she can never live up to, made because he needs it, because he's still her little boy.
"All the people in the maze are good people, under the costume. They're not bad people," he says then, a little frown working on his face. "That's why. . .why being scared is fun."
Well, sure. Okay. "Yes. You're right. Being scared is. . .is fun." It's not Castle he gets this from, is it? No. She has to be honest. The screaming? Sure, Castle. But feeling more alive with the thrill? The frisson of excitement when faced with non-life-threatening terror? That's her - and that's part of what has kept her at her job for so long now.
Dash nods to himself, tucks his hands into his suspenders, gives her a wide smile. "I love you, Mommy."
She cracks a smile back at him, reaches out to catch him in a hug.
"But I *love* being scared," he says, a delicious shiver running through his voice. "Is that okay?"
And Kate has to laugh, kissing his ear, whispering to him all the things he needs to know:
"Šta god da uradiš neće me natjerati da te prestanem voljeti."
Nothing you can do will ever make me stop loving you.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone